The Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday Jack.  Saturday Jack turned 6!! He started out the the day with a couple of presents... a Captain America costume "with muscles"  and a shield.

Then off he went to his soccer game and back to the house for his Super Hero Training Academy Party.

  This was his invitation ...

Here he is building a hideout for Superman while waiting for all his friends to arrive.

Doug was the Superhero trainer who led them in a bunch of activities to hone their super skills.

Muscles of steel.

Practicing their punches and kicks. Pow! Bam!

Perfecting their aim.

Mastering Balance

And "refueling" before their battle against the bad guys

Their bad guys hid Kryptonite all around the Hall of Justice.

And then the Superheroes attacked them with water balloons.

Then it was time for presents and cake.  What fun!

The Party turned out perfectly.  Doug was an excellent trainer and Jack had an awesome time.  When it was all over we got into the car to head to one more soccer game.  Yes, it was  a crazy day!

When we finally made it home that evening Jack opened the rest of his presents.   We had hamburgers for dinner and watched the Spy Next Door. 

Happy Birthday Jack. We love you!!

The Birthday Man

Happy Birthday To Doug!

After an extra long day at work Doug met up with us for a family celebration.

Dinner from Moe's. Desserts from Panera, and a bunch of goofy kids watching him open his presents.
 

Oh Yeah!!

Checking in

I'm back...blogging instead of doing the 1 million things I have on the list for today.  I'll keep this short.   It was fun to get a lazy day on Monday.  Max made chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. Delicious, of course.

Boys, where are your clothes..

They had spent the weekend pulling out EVERY pillow and blanked and stuffed animal  to build these huge towers. Jack is sitting on one here, but usually they would lay someone down and pile everything on top of them, then top the whole mountain with a layer of blankets and then the person underneath would bust out.  They did this over and over all weekend long.

Today Luke had swim lessons.  I discovered I could go lap swim during his lesson time so I tried that out today.  I couldn't keep swimming for 20 minutes straight.  I don't know how you do it, Grandma Blanche.  Luke has 4 more lessons left so I'm going to practice, and hopefully gain a little swimming endurance.  Luke's Superman suit finally got too dirty to wear and so in the interim we got out the girl toys.  This is what we have been playing today.  We built a house and then took a boat ride to take everyone camping.

I have been making Crayon rolls to send to CO for a craft show this weekend.   Today we found out that the leftover material is a perfect size for a multi-animal sleeping bag.

One more thing! Yesterday was my Dad's 70th Birthday.  Happy Birthday Dad!!  I am so grateful for  the wonderful life he provided for me and for all the good things he has taught me.  I'm proud to be his daughter!! Love you Dad!

PEACE OUT!

Dress ups and Teeth cleanings

 Luke continues to love dressing up.  This week we played pirates a bit.  Here he is standing on the boat looking through his telescope.  We went on a lot of adventures finding treasure and fighting bad guys with our swords. 

Everyone had teeth appointments this week.  It was Luke's first time for a cleaning and he did great!

Meredith had some adjustments on her braces.  And now there's no more gap.  She was most excited about this and went around all day showing everyone that she doesn't have a gap anymore.

Luke also started swim lessons this week.  He loves it and now can float on his back!

And finally Luke got another addition to his dress up collection last week.  He wants to be super man this year for Halloween.  Our other costume is an 18 month size, so I had to remake it for 3T Luke.

More details coming soon on BlueSusan.  Jack put on the Batman jammies to run around with Luke for the photo shoot.  He had some serious moves.

The kids had their first Soccer games this Saturday.  They did great!  Jack played hard.  Max did too, and got a goal. Mer played on a massively sized field from 11-12:30.  Let's just say it was HOT and we did NOT bring enough water for the day.  Lesson learned, next time we will be better prepared.  She did great too, of course.  It is so fun to watch them all play hard. 

We also took a trip to Sebastian Inlet with some great friends that afternoon and swam near a manatee, found some mini crabs, a dead fish, and a jellyfish.  We didn't stay too long because the thunderclouds rolled in, but we tried out another decent little soft serve place on the way home, which always ends the day on a tasty note.

The kids have no school today (Teacher work day or something) so we are off to the beach again in a little while. 

Happy Monday to you all!!

Our Tampa Trip

Time for an update I'd say.
We had a nice relaxing Labor Day weekend with a trip to the beach, shopping, rollerskating, and swimming.  No pictures, but sometimes it's just nice to enjoy life camera free.

We have our first soccer games coming up this weekend, and Luke started swim lessons yesterday.  We are finding our groove with our new busy schedule. I am thoroughly enjoying the calm play time that Luke and I get during the day.  The only challenge for me is not playing too much, so that we are ready for the craziness that ensues after we pick the school kids up...homework, dinner, soccer, piano, scouts.  We don't have all of this after school every day, but today that is our exact schedule, with addition of an orthodontic appointment before school this morning.

So, no current pictures, but I do have a bunch of pictures of our trip to Tampa a couple of weekends ago.

A while back Doug suggested that it would be cool to see the sunrise and the sunset on the same day.  East coast to West coast.  A few weeks ago, while we were sitting around the dinner table, someone asked when we were ever going to do that.  So last weekend that is just what we did.  We started our day early on the Florida East Coast to see the sunrise.

There is something so just peaceful about the beach in the morning.

Nature boy Jack found some turtle eggshells

Then we headed for the Blueberry Muffin for breakfast because it's tradition.  Later that morning we packed up the car and drove to Tampa to explore a bit and wait for the sun to set.  We decided to go to Tarpon Springs, a Greek community and headquarters of the Sponging industry. Why I don't have pictures of the sponges, I'm not sure.  We ate out at a Greek restaurant and we got to see Flaming cheese and shout OPA!  Then we went out on a dolphin cruise out into the Gulf of Mexico.

 
 We saw dolphins that's for sure.  My favorite part was the boat fast ride to the island.  The boys rode in front and the wind gave them sweet hairdo's.

 These were what inspired Max's first day of school hair do I think.

We rode out to a little island and got off the boat to hunt for shells.

On the way back we say a couple of bald eagles.

Finally we headed to Clearwater Beach to play in the waves before sunset.

It was too cloudy to see the full sunset but we were satisfied that we accomplished our adventurous goal.